News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

SANTA FE, N.M. — Not long after President Trump decided that the United States should withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg told his constituents that if it turned into a “real” problem, God would “take care of” climate change.

Social media buzzed with dismay and alarm over the Michigan congressman’s attitude, since it runs counter to overwhelming scientific evidence concerning climate change.

Yet, if you live in a religiously conservative state, as I once did, Walberg’s statement would not be surprising. I was born and raised in a Mormon family in Utah, where the word “environmentalist” is still considered by many to be foul language. I’m no longer a practicing Mormon, but rather a convert to the wonder of the outdoors, thanks to the education I received while exploring Utah’s vast public lands. I did not need to lose my religion to become an environmentalist, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt.

Years ago, I asked my dad why he didn’t think climate change was a threat. He replied that the second coming of Jesus Christ would take care of any “problems.” In other words, he believed a wipe-down of our planet would ensue upon Christ’s arrival back on earth.

I was alarmed. This seemed to me like a rather large bet to make. But my father added that because he “knew” Christ would come again, it wasn’t a g a m b l e for him and he didn’t need to worry about the future.

But, as the public response to Walburg’s statement demonstrated, this idea is not very reassuring to the majority of the American people. The science behind global climate change is overwhelming. What if the supernatural cleanup orchestrated by God failed to occur? And what if it came too late to matter?

I believe there is a strong religious argument to be made that we all have a responsibility to protect our planet. Caring for creation is emphasized in many religious texts and, in particular, by the Bible. Pope Francis wrote an entire encyclical on the subject – “Laudato SI'”, subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home.” In the case of my family’s religion, in the Book of Mormon, as well as Doctrine and Covenants, God instructs his children to tread lightly upon the Earth, to be sure that we do not defile or pollute it, and to use the planet’s gifts sparingly and conscientiously.

All scripture is open to interpretation. But here’s my take: Imagine your mother asked you to clean your room and, not only that, to take good care of your things, including your stuffed animals, your Barbie dolls and your action figures.She told you to care for each one because she gave them to you and she loves them just like she loves you.(Yes, in my story, Mom loves your childhood toys.)

But you decide not to clean up your room. In fact, you dump a couple of cans of paint on the carpet and smear fecal matter all over the walls. You light a fire in the middle of the room, throw your toys and plush animals into it, and let the air fill with smoke – endangering the house and everyone in it. How do you think your mom will react? I remember numerous mentions in the Bible about a vengeful God who doesn’t take kindly to man’s willful disregard for his commandments. Epic flood, anyone?

Which brings me back to Rep. Tim Walberg, and his dismissal of science and the future of our planet. Walberg and others like him can decide that climate change doesn’t concern them and, if they’re correct, God will fix it all. But when? And after how many of the earth’s plant and wildlife species have disappeared, become displaced, or gone extinct by the effects of climate change? And by destroying our environment for the sake of continued fossil fuel extraction and use, what does that say about us humans as stewards of the land?

Creating harmony between religious beliefs and the conservation of our planet is really quite easy. Even for those who believe that our warming planet poses no real threat, advocating for clean air, water, and protecting Earth’s teeming diversity of plants and wildlife is still something everyone can get behind. Or mostly everyone. Because I’m thinking that God would love to see his children taking care of their planet and not totally gutting the place.

Christine Colbert is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of High Country News (hcn.org). She lives and writes in Washington.

Agelbert NOTE: The following average temperature at 2 meters projection for the year 2100 on the RCP 8.5 (highly optimistic IPCC "business as usual" scenario) ECM (Environmental Change Model) scenario is adapted from Birkel, 2010 (PhD. Dissertation).

Since 2010, we have learned that the follwing scenario will arrive about 50 years earlier than Birkel estimated. So, what you see below is what those alive will most likely experience in 2050, NOT in the year 2100. Have a nice day.

Quote

The most likely RCP of those presented is the 8.5 pathway, in the sense that it most closely resembles our observations so far. If anything, it looks quite optimistic right now.

It's hard to call any RCP truly unobtainable. If we'd invent a miraculous carbon "vacuum cleaner" tomorrow and decide to completely crash the world economy the day after tomorrow, so that we'd have negative worldwide emissions very soon, then we could probably follow the 2.6 trajectory. That is, however, very unlikely.

By the end of this century, world temperatures are likely to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius, a study revealed on Monday.

The temperatures will increase before 2100 by 2 to 4.9 degrees Celsius with a 90% chance. Only 5% chance indicates warming could be at or below 2 degrees Celsius, one of the many targets Paris Agreement is tackling, the study published in Nature Climate Change shows.

Adrian Raftery, the lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Washington, said failing the target would have dramatic consequences on people's livelihoods.

"Countries need to change the economic incentives for producing carbon – for example by introducing a carbon tax – and encourage innovation that would improve energy efficiency."

That is putting 350 million people in 31 countries and regions in danger of deadly heat waves and other health hazard. Weather-related disasters, such as drought, heat wave and rising sea levels, are expected to cause 152,000 deaths annually in Europe between 2071 and 2100, jumping from 3,000 a year between 1981 and 2010, CNN reported.

The number of expected death is 50 times larger than at present, the study in the Lancet Planetary Health journal said. It added that heatwaves would lead to 99 percent of all weather-related deaths.

According to the UN Environment Program, 12 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions should be cut from the current 54 billion annually, mainly from fossil fuels burning, to keep the rise below 2 Celsius.

"Countries need to change the economic incentives for producing carbon – for example by introducing a carbon tax – and encourage innovation that would improve energy efficiency," he said. "We should be learning more from countries that are particularly carbon-efficient, like France, which has a very low-carbon transport infrastructure."

Another study published on Nature Climate Change in June suggested outperforming Paris Agreement would not stop half of the world's population being exposed to fatal heat waves.

"Even if we outperform the Paris targets, the population exposed to deadly heat will be about 50% by 2100."

Camilo Mora, lead author of 'Global risk of deadly heat'

"Many people around the world are already paying the ultimate price of heat waves, and while models suggest that this is likely to continue, it could be much worse if emissions are not considerably reduced,” said Camilo Mora, lead author of the study and a biogeography professer at University of Hawaii.

Today, several countries have, as do we, a much greater industrial capacity. It is inaccurate to claim that we cannot produce sufficient renewable energy devices in a decade or so to replace the internal combustion engine everywhere in our civilization. The industrial capacity is there and is easily provable by asking some simple questions about the fossil fuel powered ICE status quo:

How long do ICE powered machines last?

How much energy does it require to mine the raw materials and manufacture the millions of engines wearing out and being replaced day in and day out?

What happens if ALL THAT INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY is, instead, dedicated to manufacturing Renewable Energy machines?

IOW, if there is a ten to twenty year turnover NOW in our present civilization involving manufacture and replacement of the ICEs we use, why can't we retool and convert the entire ICE fossil fuel dependent civilization to a Renewable Energy Machine dependent civilization?

1) The industrial capacity is certainly there to do it EASILY in two decades and maybe just ten years with a concerted push.

2) Since Renewable Energy machines use LESS metal and do not require high temperature alloys, a cash for clunkers worldwide program could obtain more than enough metal raw material without ANY ADDITIONAL MINING (except for rare earth minerals - a drop in the bucket - :icon_mrgreen: LOL- compared to all the mining presently done for metals to build the ICE) by just recycling the ICE parts into Renewable Energy machines.

3) Just as in WWII, but on a worldwide scale, the recession/depression would end as millions of people were put to work on the colossal transition to Renewable Energy.

HOWEVER, despite our ABILITY to TRANSITION TO 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY, we "CAN'T DO IT" because the fossil fuel industry has tremendous influence on the worldwide political power structure from the USA to Middle East to Russia to China.

IOW, it was NEVER

1. An energy problem,

2. A "laws of thermodynamics" problem,

3. A mining waste and pollution problem,

4. A lack of wind or sun problem,

5. An environmental problem,

6. An industrial capacity problem or

7. A technology problem.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE ABOVE excuses for claiming Renewable Energy cannot replace Fossil Fuels are STRAWMEN presented to the public for the express purpose of convincing us of the half truth that without fossil fuels, civilization will collapse.

It was ALWAYS a POLITICAL PROBLEM of the fossil fuel industry not wanting to relinquish their stranglehold on the world's geopolitical make up.

It drives them insane to think that Arizona and New Mexico can provide more power than all the oil in the Middle East. Their leverage over lawmakers and laws to avoid environmental liability is directly proportional to their market share of global energy supplies.

They are treatened by Renewable Energy and have mobilized to hamper its growth as much as possible through various propaganda techniques using all the above strawmen.

It is TRUE that civilization will collapse and a huge die off will occur without fossil fuels IF, and ONLY IF, Renewable Energy does not replace fossil fuels. It is blatantly obvious that we need energy to run our civilization.

It is ALSO TRUE that if we continue to burn fossil fuels in ICEs, Homo sapiens will become extinct. This is not hyperbole. We ALREADY have baked in conditions, that take about three decades to fully develop, that have placed us in a climate like the one that existed over 3 million years ago.

We DID NOT thrive in those conditions or multiply. This is a fact. We barely survived until a couple of hundred thousand years ago when the weather became friendlier and even then we didn't really start to populate the planet until about 10,000 years ago.

The climate 3 million years ago was, basically, mostly lethal to Homo Sapiens. To say that we have technology and can handle it is a massive dodge of our responsibility for causing this climate crisis (and ANOTHER strawman from Exxon "We will adapt to that" CEO).

Fossil fuel corporations DO NOT want to be held liable for the damage they have caused, so, even as they allow Renewable Energy to have a niche in the global energy picture, will use that VERY NICHE (see rare earth mining and energy to build PV and wind turbines) to blame Renewables for environmental damage.

In summary, the example of the Liberty ships is proof we CAN TRANSITION TO RENEWABLE ENERGY in, at most, a couple of decades if we decide to do it but WON'T do it because of the fossil fuel industry's stranglehold on political power, financing and laws along with the powerful propaganda machine they control.

PART IVThree different future scenarios

What can we expect from the somewhat dismal prospects for Homo sapiens?

1) Terrible weather and melted polar ice caps with an increase in average wind velocity in turn causing more beach erosion from gradually rising sea level and wave action. The oceans will become more difficult to traverse because of high wave action and more turbulent seas. The acidification will increase the dead zones and reduce aquatic life diversity. But you've heard all this before so I won't dwell on the biosphere problems that promise to do us in.

2) As Renewable Energy devices continue to make inroads in fossil fuel profits, expect an engineered partial civilizational collapse in a large city to underline the "you are all going to die without fossil fuels" propaganda pushed to avoid liability for the increasingly "in your face" climate extremes.

3) Less democracy and less freedom of expression from some governments and more democracy and freedom of expression from other governments in

direct proportion to the percent penetration of Renewable energy machines in powering their countries (more RE, more freedom)

and an inverse proportion to the power of their "real politik" Fossil Fuel lobbies in countries. (more FF power, less freedom).

The bottom line, as Guy McPherson says, is that NATURE BATS LAST. Nature has millions of "bats". Homo SAP has a putrid fascist parasite bleeding it to death and poisoning it at the same time. The parasite cannot survive without us so it is allowing us to get a tiny IV to keep us alive a little longer (a small percentage of renewable energy machines). It won't work.

But the parasite has a plan. The IV will be labelled a "parasite" (the villain and guilty party) when Homo SAP finally figures out he is going to DIE if he doesn't fix this "bleeding and poison" problem. Then the real parasite will try to morph into a partially symbiotic organism and Homo SAP will muddle through somehow.

I think that the parasite doesn't truly appreciate the severity of Mother Nature's "bat".

Three future Scenarios:

1. If the parasite (as a metaphor for a fossil fuel powered civilization) does not DIE TOTALLY, I don't think any of us will make it.

2. If the the parasite takes MORE than 20 years to die, some of us will make it but most of us won't.

3. If, in 2017 (revised to 2018 ), when the north pole has the first ice free summer, all the governments of the Earth join in a crash program to deep six the use of fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine within a ten year period, most of us will make it.

A word about political power and real politik living in a fossil fuel fascist dystopia.

IT simply DOES NOT MATTER what the 'real world", "real politik" geopolitical power structure mankind has now is. IT DOES NOT MATTER how powerful the fossil fuel industry is in human affairs. The ICE and fossil fuels have to go or Mother Nature will kill us, PERIOD.

Pass it on. You never know when somebody on the wrong side of the Darwininan fence will read it and join the effort to save humanity.

Agelbert NOTE: Since the above video, all the heat records from 2012 have been broken repeatedly. AND, an error in the data at the time has been corrected. IOW, the temperature predictions in above video, though extremely alarming and dire, are too conservative.

Dr. James Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. His early research on the clouds of Venus helped identify their composition as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has focused his research on Earth’s climate, especially human-made climate change.

Dr. Hansen is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and was designated by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth. He has received numerous awards including the Carl-Gustaf Rossby and Roger Revelle Research Medals, the Sophie Prize and the Blue Planet Prize. Dr. Hansen is recognized for speaking truth to power, for identifying ineffectual policies as greenwash, and for outlining actions that the public must take to protect the future of young people and other life on our planet.

Dr. Hansen's talk is the keynote address of Williams’ Confronting Climate Change year of inquiry. Throughout this academic year the college is hosting a series of speakers, events, and programming planned to shed light on the issue of climate change and how we should respond to it as individuals, as an institution, as a nation, and as a member of the global community.

End of the road for Doomer Dreams of Collapse and Environmental Recovery

But most Doomers enamored of their stored rice and beans and honey just cannot handle the fact that the collapse of civilization is NOT going to guarantee ANY environmental recovery for SEVERAL CENTURIES, regardless of the fact that THESE DOOMERS ARE CORRECT TO ASSUME THAT OVER 90% OF THE HUMAN SPECIES WILL DIE IN THE NEXT 50 YEARS.

Why do these Doomers cling to their wishful thinking in the face of scientifically proven biosphere math facts? SEE BELOW:

In The Secure and the Dispossessed, Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes have collected an unflinching survey of a species gone mad. The book’s subtitle is “How the Military and Corporations Are Shaping a Climate-Changed World.” In short, the Authoritarian Exceptionalist Military Corporate Complex is flamboyantly recognizing the hole it is in, and exponentially increasing the rate of digging, while hiring PR firms to redefine “digging” as “robust engagement in advanced resilient green initiatives that save us all by further enriching the rich, militarizing the world, and rendering the earth uninhabitable.”

The contributors to this book confront the idea that surviving in a further climate changed world is unrelated to surviving in the world we have right now. Avoiding the need to reform the most destructive practices now engaged in, they suggest, is not the surest path to useful future innovations. In fact, it exacerbates future crises. Out-of-control corporate crony capitalism and militarism are problems that must be addressed now and ever more so as the natural environment collapses. War and disaster capitalism are not produced by environmental or economic or refugee crises, quite the reverse. Climate crisis could produce greater social unity and sustainable practices if those are what we choose to respond with.

Corporate and military greenwashing should be powerwashed with facts. Wal-Mart’s renewable energy goal is set to be actually reached in about 300 years. The U.S. military’s supposed greening consists mostly of token moves toward non-green nuclear energy and bio-fuel “alternatives” dwarfed by such leading threats as a massive new investment in nuclear weaponry. Exxon Mobil now possesses more oil that the human-friendly climate can survive, and Exxon Mobil is focused on finding more. The proxy wars of the previous cold war ravaged social cohesion while killing 20 million, injuring 60 millions, and making 15 million people homeless.Rex Tillerson, one of the supposed “adults” keeping Trump under control, has said that climate crises for agriculture are no problem at all, as people can simply change the locations of the farming of various crops. Scientists do not agree with him. Following the BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, insurance companies have been offering reputational-risk insurance , meaning the provision of public relations services to sell a false but preferable image of a corporation following its creation of a widely known catastrophe.

As climate change creates weather extremes, weather extremes create greater energy use,which creates greater climate change, which opens up previously inaccessible northern fossil fuel supplies, which can be used to create both greater climate change and energy use, as well as military conflicts, which are the biggest energy user there is — militarism creating a level of energy use that guarantees much greater climate change, which a militarized academia is establishing as a “cause” of militarism. I’m fairly certain that our Mentally Deranged Dotard in Chief could not find his way out of these loops with a headlamp and a smartphone even if he wanted to, which would have to follow his admitting they exist.

(February 2, 2010) David Morrison, NASA Lunar Science Institute, discusses the discovery of the cretaceous catastrophe that caused the last mass extinction and explains NASA's research on the danger of similar events occurring in Earth's near future.

The connection of climate change and a warming planet to increasing forest fires isn't just confirmed by observational statistics. Scientific studies have started quantifying the contributions of a warmer planet to increasing fires. A 2016 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrated that over half of the increases in "fuel aridity" (metrics that measure the degree of lack of moisture in fuels) since the 1970s, and a doubling of the amount of forest area burned since 1984 were due to human-caused climate change. A 2017 study in the same journal concluded global warming was responsible for increasing the severity and probability of the hottest monthly and daily events in 80 percent of the globe that they were able to study.

This video poses a compelling set of questions: Do we educate to strengthen our democracy or to strengthen our economy? Does competition or cooperation produce better results? What will students need to know? Are they being educated with current reality in mind? Should the people support the economy or should the economy support the people?

Maybe we need to change the way we look at success, progress, wealth, competition, the future?

It is a collage of points made on the subject of sustainability, and a change ofdirection that needs to be addressed within the educational system to reflect our current reality.

Compelling images, graphics and quotes like this one tell the story:

"We have reached a point where the value we add to our economy is being outweighed by the value we are removing." Paul Hawken, author and environmentalist.

Indeed, GDP is not an indicator of a society's well being or stability. It goes up with every instance of destructive spending too: illness, war, nuclear power plants, GMO food production, incarceration.

We need to come together around a new indicator of "wealth", and prepare students for the reality of Now.